Private school VAT furore shows just how much help our state schools need

VAT on private schools has been slated as a “tax on aspiration” – but why don’t we focus on making state education aspirational, asks Simon Neville

My favourite theory about why the Daily Mail rails against north London’s elites with such vigour is that the paper’s longest serving editor Paul Dacre went to school there and hated it.

Back in the 1960s, Dacre won a scholarship to University College School in Hampstead, a private school that wouldn’t look out of place as a backup set for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. Having grown up in far more modest surroundings than his richer peers, other pupils are said to have constantly mocked him for the fact he was attending on the back of someone else’s money.

The premise goes his life’s work at the Daily Mail, of kicking any North London elite who dares to have an opinion, was revenge for the treatment he got at school.

But why might this be relevant to today?

Well, if the Tories are to be believed, Fleet Street’s most influential editor may never have gained his place at the prestigious school if Labour had been in charge and imposed its new plan to add VAT to the school’s fees. This will see scholarships gone, parents forced to quit and a state school system overrun with extra kids.

According to the party, the policy is a “tax on aspiration”, which begs the question is the Venn diagram of aspiration and wealth a full circle? If it is, perhaps some soul searching is required as to why aspiration can only be achieved via a private education.

I was privately educated and went to the same school as Dacre (not that anyone at the school mentioned it during my time there). My aspirations were reached because I didn’t have to rack up student debt at university; I could do free work experience at local newspapers, I had free accommodation in London where my parents lived and I had relatives who could help open doors into the media.

As far as I could tell, the extortionate fees taught me, and many others, how to be confident, despite learning the same topics and curriculum as those in the state system. I was shown how to walk into a room and speak with enough assurance that people would believe me, regardless of whether I was right. It’s this confidence that explains exactly why the media, politics and the legal world is over-indexed with us.

But the question is, isn’t the solution to make sure state schools can build up confidence too?

Shouldn’t we be asking children in state schools which university do they want to go to, rather than whether they should go at all? Or is Michael Gove’s steadfast curriculum the only way to make sure we achieve the business leaders, politicians and scientists of the future?

Education secretary Gillian Keegan also reckons the extra cost will impact children with learning disabilities, because so many use the private school system and could be forced out.

The irony must be lost on her because the reason so many parents end up sending their kids with conditions that make mainstream school difficult, is because there simply isn’t enough provision in the state system.

And even if those families do find a private school willing to take their children, there will be plenty more who will refuse if the kid’s needs might impact the school’s exam results. Some private schools might as well have the motto: “Autistics welcome, but only the high functioning ones”. It would certainly be more honest.

Added to that is the fact that a huge chunk of those children with disabilities in private schools are there on an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which is funded by… the government.

I appreciate this election has been light on policy but to see the VAT plans being targeted so relentlessly by the Tories only stands to highlight just how problematic our state system is.

If anything, you’d think the Conservatives and Paul Dacre would welcome the move. After all, Labour can only implement it thanks to the UK no longer being part of the EU – a cause the newspaper man and the party feel almost as strongly about as the elites of north London.